This week I’m joining in with SFR (Science Fiction Romance) Brigade Presents, a group of Sci-Fi romance authors who post snippets every Friday. Check them out to discover other cool snippets.

Today’s snippet is from near the beginning of Reckless Rebellion, the sequel to Reckless Rescue. It’s currently in second draft stage, so this snippet hasn’t been extensively edited yet.

Tyris’s past is becoming more relevant now, and he’s realising there’s a lot he hasn’t told Marlee, and quite a bit he doesn’t really want to tell her.

Marlee watched him, her head tilted to one side. She absently twirled a lock of hair around her finger, something he’d noticed she did frequently when she was thinking. “Tyris, why aren’t some people allowed to have children?”

Tyris winced. He’d avoided explaining to her until now, the reasons he’d been banned from having kids. He remembered Milandra’s face, when he’d admitted that he really had done something illegal. How she’d tossed the word criminal at him.

Marlee wasn’t like that. He knew that she would understand the reasons for his actions. “Because Urslat is overpopulated,” he found himself saying instead.

Marlee’s face wrinkled. “But there are so many planets, are they all overpopulated?”

“No, not all of them. In fact, the idea of encouraging more children was to populate all the other planets. But it turned out most people don’t want to leave Urslat.”

“Why?”

Tyris struggled to explain. At least this was better than talking about his past. “Well, most of the planets were like Semala. They were mining or farming outposts, with few of the comforts and luxuries most people are used to on Urslat.”

When Tyris and Marlee return to his home on Urslat, not everyone is pleased to see them, or to find out that Marlee’s people survived the meteor impact. They are, however, delighted to have a new source of anysogen. And they’ll do anything they can to gain control of it as soon as possible.

Marlee thought things would be simpler once they were on Urslat. After all, Tyris said no one would try to break up their relationship there. They hadn’t counted on Tyris’s wife, Milandra, who is determined not to let her husband go now he’s famous. But Tyris and Marlee have one very good reason for keeping their relationship a secret, and for that, they need Milandra to believe her marriage isn’t on the rocks.

In the meantime, there are people who find the idea of a planet where having children is encouraged very interesting indeed. Especially since some of the contraceptive chips have been malfunctioning…

Currently in editing.

Second draft